“Surely the George W. Bush experience taught us something.”
Let me push back. I opposed the Iraq war, but to me the public seems to have absorbed the wrong lesson — that military intervention never works, rather than the more complex lesson that it is a blunt and expensive tool with a very mixed record.
.. Yes, the Iraq war was a disaster, but the no-fly zone in northern Iraq after the first gulf war was a huge success. Vietnam was a monumental catastrophe, but the British intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000 was a spectacular success. Afghanistan remains a mess, but airstrikes helped end genocide in the Balkans. U.S. support for Saudi bombing in Yemen is counterproductive, but Bill Clinton has said that his worst foreign policy mistake was not halting the Rwandan genocide.
.. I wonder what would happen if Aleppo were full of golden retrievers, if we could see barrel bombs maiming helpless, innocent puppies. Would we still harden our hearts and “otherize” the victims? Would we still say “it’s an Arab problem; let the Arabs solve it”?
MCC helps reduce tensions with LOST sheep
Now it’s worse. Syrians vie with Lebanese for seasonal and day labor jobs. Prices for everything are higher because of increased demand, but Syrians are more likely to get the support of nongovernmental organizations.
Not surprisingly, a number of Lebanese who were struggling to provide for their families before the Syrians arrived are more than a little annoyed that making a living is even harder now.
Assad May Bet That Russia and West Need Him More Than He Needs Them
“Putin apparently thinks Syria needs Russia more than the other way around,” said David W. Lesch, an Assad biographer and professor at Trinity University in San Antonio. “But Assad and his inner circle probably arrogantly think it is quite the reverse.”
.. Mr. Assad’s advisers believe not only that he has passed “the risky period” and will remain the president of Syria, she said in a recent interview, but also that his ability to “stand up to the whole world” will make him more prominent than ever as “a leader in the region.”
They insist that Russia is steadfast, she added, but they also hold an insurance card: their even closer relationship with Iran and their ability to juggle two very different allies.
“They are like a man with two wives,” said Ms. Khalil, best known for defending Saddam Hussein in his war crimes trial in Iraq. “There is something you like in each one.”
.. Over and over again in separate interviews, these people described a leadership that is expert in playing allies off one another; often refuses compromise, even when the chips appear to be down; and, if forced to make deals, delays and complicates them, playing for time until Mr. Assad’s situation improves.
.. Another problem, analysts say, is that Mr. Assad and his father before him deliberately created a system dependent on a single leader, without strong institutions or deputies. Some believe it is so brittle that even the slightest compromise is likely to bring it down — the assessment that led Mr. Assad to crack down on protesters rather than accede to political changes in the first place.
Putin Orders Start of Syria Withdrawal, Saying Goals Are Achieved
The Russian decision could signal a new confidence in Mr. Assad’s stability or an effort to pressure him to negotiate with his political adversaries — or both.
.. Mr. Putin has achieved many of his main goals: bringing Russia back to center stage as a global power; preventing, on principle, regime change by outside powers, particularly Western ones; gaining a stronger foothold in Syria; picking off Russian jihadists on the Syrian battlefield; and strengthening Mr. Assad... And it can be argued that Mr. Putin has little to lose: Russia can easily resume strikes from its base at will, and it can keep supporting the Syrian military and Mr. Assad’s other allies on the ground — Iranian-backed militias from Hezbollah, Iraq and elsewhere — with Russian weapons while floating cash to the Syrian government... the $3 million daily cost of its involvement in Syria while collapsing oil prices and economic sanctions are harming Russia’s financial health... Even in Geneva, the opposition spokesman, Salem al-Muslet, reflected that ambivalence, resenting Russia’s support for Mr. Assad but seeing Mr. Putin as the only figure who could force Mr. Assad to negotiate in earnest.